Watching My Willow
by Wanderlustlover
Summary: Maybe, just maybe, a little insight into Byron's mind. Set before Phoenix Rising.


"Watching My Willow"  
  
I was meandering along under the impressions of a million inspirations for The Phoenix Ascendant, my running arc at present, and Anonymous's story "Paths not Taken". (http://www.geocities.com/heather_raelynn/paths_intro.html).   
  
Like most people the story paints Byron as a fanatic and a martyr, which I tend to agree with half the time and not other times. Most of the time I have no love loss for him as he was so obviously a third tier character. I'm not sure Lyta actually loved Byron, but my opinions of Byron's feelings for her depend on the time of day now still.  
  
Well, along this line of thought, and my surprise at my very hidden, soft spot for Byron's case "Watching My Willow" was born, when I realized I wanted to tackle Byron from the inside, not the outside.   
  
~*~*~  
  
There are times in the dead of the night that I can not sleep no matter how hard I try. I lay here in my bed and listen to the sounds of life around me. The sounds of thoughts, the sounds of the station, but mostly the sounds of my family. The sounds of early night ecstasy in physical sound and mental perfection. The sounds of middle night in soft breathing and exchanged whispers of sleepiness. the sounds of midnight in deep breathing, close holding, and free dreams.   
  
The echoes of all time abounding all around us, like whispers, like recorded moments from yesterday for those with only the eyes and ears to see and hear them.  
  
I lay there and listen to them, each as one, and one as is all. They are my freedom. They are my purpose. They are my joy. They are the only true family I have ever found. I've known most of them longer than I can remember having known my parents. I love them all intensely for the past, for the present, and for what we hope and strive toward for the future.   
  
Their dreams alone could fuel my reasoning of their joy and of their freedom. They deserve better lives, than those of slavery, hatred, and tests, that they were born to. They deserve better lives, than these of lurker spots, hiding, and running, that they have now. They deserve a world green and glowing, only needing to be filled with love, hope and pride. They deserve to never know fear for their safety and that of their loved ones.   
  
They deserve the rights of being. Deserve, demand, there is so little difference now that we know the truth of our dark genesis. They deserve what comes with creation. They deserve a place for homes safe and warm, for families to grow up inside of.   
  
One moment of pure happiness for them. One lifetime of moments like that strung together is that too much to ask for? Too much to fight for? Too much to die for?  
  
I yearn for that myself, once again, solely, when I look on her. She makes me want to do more all over again. I'd get her a blade of real green grass and bring it to her if I had the planet just to see her eyes alight with the possibility and hope. She makes me want to be more, do more than I have, like what I have done isn't enough. She makes me want to break the entire mold just for a smile.  
  
She is the exact example of our people. She was shipped here because she was decided upon under some law and order, like a shipment of food or books. She was used only when they need her and forgotten the rest of the time. She was not befriended beyond first blush and as much as she put herself into the limelight against her will she was never called on, nor thanked, by those who used her. She was only used, left alone, thrown away, to wait and be used again.   
  
But staring at her in my arms, I want to right all the wrongs of the world for her. I want to simply make her heart lighter. I want to erase those memories that even now make her wary coming here because she thinks somewhere deep down we might close the door and lock her out forever like all the others. She wants to believe, she hopes that it's true and fears that this is a dream.   
  
She hides these fears so well. She hides them under duty, loyalty to her job, and the tedious things they asks of her for. She hides them under being strong and independent and not needing anyone, even as she cries at night for these things. I hate her tears. I want to make each into a flower that I could hand back and cause a riot of smiles with.  
  
My Willow.   
  
My one pure and true thing. I know she will not run. She would not run even were she trapped here. She'd stand it all out, no matter what were to happen. She is my solace, my heaven, my companion. I pray that we endure many years of life together this time and admit to small fears of never seeing those years with these latest obstacles. I want to dream though. I want to remove all of my knowledge long enough to dream of it as it could be.   
  
As she dreams now, free of the waking world.  
  
She dreams of a planet I will never step foot on. A planet I doubt she even remembers and yet all she dreams is it. Pieces of memory trapped in that subconscious like bits and scraps of cloth that find their freedom in her rest. I find my freedom in her rest. In the way she curls up with her head under my chin, hers arms across my body just there enough to know I'm real and she's safe. To prove to herself in the smallest way, this is not a dream.  
  
Sometimes I think it might be a dream. I might have simply pulled her from my dreams so many eons ago. Passion and strength, love and temperance, power and compromise, all wound up together in this breath taking woman who whispers so quietly words in a different language against my chest as she sleeps. I would bear the world for her, for all of them....but I will not be her down fall.   
  
I will not be another one of them to her.  
  
Tomorrow will come a hard and long day. I know it will be hard and it will be long, and I wonder if she knows just how hard and how long. She has sworn to be here with us, forever and ever, to fight our battle now. Says with fever that she will not return to them now. That she is part of our family. I wish she did not have to see it, did not have to know what could happen at worse and yet, but I would deny her nothing. She is the beat of my heart, the breath in my chest, the life flowing through me.   
  
I look back on my life with regrets and pride in so many different places. I look back on those who were important and they were so few before I defected, Bester among those few. She hates him, all of them here do. I can not hate Bester simply for the reasons of hate. Love and hate are a very thin line they say. I was not simply his protégé, I saw him as a father figure to me for so many years. I wanted to impress him, to be him, and in doing so got to know him, got him to know me...like a son.   
  
His plea cemented that that is still true. I wish him no harm. I wish him good life. But I will not let him stand in the way, and yet, I can not hate him for the actions I condemn him for everyday. Alfred Bester was akin to my father and my fondest teacher, and now he is my sworn enemy and that of our people. How is it that families crumble so? I thought that one was a bond that would never break, never knowing what he would ask of me....and I hope that this family now will never break, no matter what consequences may come tomorrow.   
  
I said that long ago with term to him, I'm sure, as a child fresh in training. And now? Now, I am grown and wish at times that I could be more that child. I know too much now. I have seen too much. I have learned too much. I have lived too much. Too much, too much, too much everything and it has blackened my thoughts, tarnished the edges of my heart and my dreams with realism. I am living a dream, and surviving a nightmare, hoping beyond hope that the silver lining will come sooner than later.  
  
I have no regrets with Lyta. I will not claim her as perfection, but she is love. Sweet and simple, complex and confusing, strewn into a million moments and words. She is everything I've ever wanted and wished for with my heart. I think that's what makes this all the harder.   
  
I asked her, without explanation to leave my side, if and when I should ask. She protested, often for the first day, silently for the next, and then agreed. She still doesn't want to acknowledge that she did. I don't blame her. I don't want to acknowledge making her promise to leave my side. My life before her seems so bleak, but all of life, out there waiting for these next few turns of events, and beyond, without her would a sin.   
  
There is so much of the world she needs to see. So much she has left to do still. She is special. So much more special than she knows. And she has so far to go. So much to do. She is still a star being born into this life. I would not snuff her out so soon. If I could without hurting her, I'd keep her from the rest of the world, so it could never hurt her again. She needs them though, needs them even as they refuse her. I hope for a better life for her.   
  
I wish I could know for sure I would be at her side when it comes.   
  
I want to see the dawn of our people's paradise rising in her eyes.  
  
To take her in my arms and know that nothing will be like this again.  
  
~*~*~  
  
"Byron?" She moved, stretching her neck, blinking her eyes, her voice; a murmur of sleep. A small foggy and worried impulse quickened inside of her, only still half asleep, when the impulse of emotion was so much stronger than the impulse of thought.  
  
"Don't fret. I'm here," he whispered softly against the crown of her forehead and her hair, placing a kiss along that delicate line. Pulling the blanket closer around her shoulders from where it had fallen to near her waist, he felt her slipping back into sleep even as he whispered;  
  
"Sleep, my willow. Sleep and I'll watch over you and keep you safe." 


End file.
